Posted
by
timothy
on Saturday April 20, 2013 @10:37AM
from the best-way-to-be-bored dept.

Ars Technica reviewer Lee Hutchinson says that Dell's Ubuntu-loaded 13" Ultrabook (the product of "Project Sputnik") is "functional," "polished," and (for a Linux laptop) remarkably unremarkable. "It just works," he says. Hutchinson points out that this is a sadly low bar, but nonetheless gives Dell great credit for surpassing it. He finds the Ultrabook's keyboard to be spongy, but has praise for most elements of the hardware itself, right down to (not everyone's favorite) the glossy screen.

All the UI's I've used with the thin window edges have been difficult for me to interact with, by mouse, trackpad, or touchpoint ("eraser-pointer"), because of the challenges of hitting a particular very small spot.

The size of the UI receiving area for window resizing shouldn't be coupled to the pixel size of the actual border. That's stupid. Trade pixels of screen space as a hack to get easier to use UI. No. This is 2013. We should make UI that works -- Hover mouse over the edge of the screen frustratingly? Activate a window resize event then. It's not rocket science.

What do you need window edges for? Setup you window manager to use a modifier (alt in my case) key to interact with the window itself, eg:alt-button1: movealt-button2: resizealt-button3: lower/raise windowBeats trying to grab edges, especially with "focus follows mouse" and a high anti focus stealing setting for the wm.

I'm not sure how that Ars reviewer was picked to write TFA, but he seemed a bit dated in his ideas about Linux compatibility. Granted that I do my research on hardware before buying, but it's been a very long time since I've had any trouble using two-finger scrolling (with inertial scrolling), or getting wifi to work, or getting (for crying out loud!) sound to work. Those are issues from a decade ago; they shouldn't be problems now.

The trouble is that the implementations of X seem to conflate the visible border of the window (possibly 1px wide) with the grabbable area that ought to cause the cursor to change to the "i can move this" double-arrow. That needs to be several pixels thick for most people to grab it. The designers of Unity and other windowing systems appear to place more emphasis on "looking pretty" than on "working well".

All the UI's I've used with the thin window edges have been difficult for me to interact with, by mouse, trackpad, or touchpoint ("eraser-pointer"), because of the challenges of hitting a particular very small spot.

I too raged against this, even before Unity. The simple answer to please the UI design folks and the usability folks is to decouple the border interaction size from the actual pixel size of the window border. Just make an invisible region that is the clickable border, and it can be as big as needed. I'm no Ubuntu apologist, in fact I switched DEs but they fixed this somewhat in the new version of Unity. Even the scrolling bars have adopted that larger interactive layer and smaller visual appearance. How

The parent means a three-finger tap (three fingers at once on a multi-touch compatible trackpad), not three sequential left-button taps! It's a neat feature -- you can also do a three-finger drag to move the window around.

Every single Ars Technica laptop review complains about the trackpad. No trackpad is sufficient. As a matter of fact, we should all consider the presence of glowing praise about a trackpad in a Ars Technica review a clear signal that they're all being held hostage by crazed gunmen and the authorities need to be informed.

Every single Ars Technica laptop review complains about the trackpad. No trackpad is sufficient. As a matter of fact, we should all consider the presence of glowing praise about a trackpad in a Ars Technica review a clear signal that they're all being held hostage by crazed gunmen and the authorities need to be informed.

Until you read a Mac laptop review. There it seems they forget to review the trackpad - about the only complaint I found was a news article way back in 2008. I don't think they have any revi

Probably in setting this whole thing up, they actually had developers write code and put it in a PPA and have it merged upstream, they apparently include a year of support with their own support staff that at least knows some Linux, they're trying for a few more value-adds but overall I think you're underestimating the overhead in doing a small run compared to selling millions of Windows machines. Also all the crapware they bundle with Windows puts the OS cost at ~$0, here you really get a no-crap standard

Back in Feb I bought a Dell Vostro 2520 laptop w/ i3, 4GB, 500GB HD loaded preloaded with Ubuntu 12.04 for only $450 (including tax & shipping). I used $220 in spare change at a CoinStar machine to pay for half of it (no fees charged by CoinStar because Dell is one of their "Partners").

I had trouble ordering it on their site because I couldn't use my CoinStar issued 'Gift Card' on a registered account (GCs are for consumer purchases and this was a "business" computer). I couldn't order it over the phone

It isn't expensive and I think it's in line with similar offerings from other manufacturers. If you know of any other ultrabook that sports similar specs (1080p screen, 256GB SSD are the specs that interest me) then please share as I avoid Dell like the plague.

Here's something a little more upscale:
17.3"
core i7
8 Gb/500 Gb
For the same price
https://www.system76.com/laptops/model/bonx6 [system76.com]
Personally, upgrading to the two 1Tb drives, at $1,660, makes this a !@#$ing phenomenal Ubuntu machine.

There's a "Unity MT Grab Handles" compiz plugin that can help. Not sure if it's enabled by default, but I'm fairly certain you need to give it a key binding to actually use it. From my install notes....

The eternal rift among users. Glossy, or matte; that is the question. I don't care for matt screens as they dull the contrast and bleed colors together. I can tune out the glare as it doesn't bother me much.

The problem I find is that with a laptop of any kind you often can't control the environment where you are using it and the glare can become a real issue. If I'm wearing a light colored shirt in a bright area the reflection in a glossy screen is horribly distracting. If I am using my work laptop instead with a matte screen I never even give it a thought.

The eternal rift among users. Glossy, or matte; that is the question. I don't care for matt screens as they dull the contrast and bleed colors together. I can tune out the glare as it doesn't bother me much.

I used to think I cared, then I got a MacBook with a glass screen and joined the 90% of PC users who just don't care either way as long as the display has no stuck pixels.

It's usually a moot point as I ensure to position my laptop in such a way to have the source of light in front of me, and not behind. That, and I typically like working in moderate to low lighting environments anyways. But in the event I encounter some reflection, it usually becomes apparent with one eye and not both. I guess that's why I can tune it out. But I absolutely must have sharp contrast and vibrant colors being displayed.

I can see that a matte screen offers a more practical and utilitarian option

Nearly 1600 before tax and no user upgradable components? You'd think it was a macbook

Actually 50% more than the new MacBook Pro I bought last summer. The MBP has upgradable RAM, disk (SSD or spinning), and even the ability to swap out the optical drive for a second disk. And believe me, if Apple gets one thing right, it's that "it just works."

Yes but some of us do prefer to run Linux than OSX. Granted this laptop is too expensive. I'm going to be shopping for a laptop soon and frankly I'll probably be caught between this and another MacBook Air... sigh.

Yes but some of us do prefer to run Linux than OSX. Granted this laptop is too expensive. I'm going to be shopping for a laptop soon and frankly I'll probably be caught between this and another MacBook Air... sigh.

So... why not just run Linux on the MacBook Air, if that's what you prefer?

Yes, that's what I will do if I buy an Air for work. It sure would be nice if the 11" Air had a decent resolution. I don't mind whatever it is for every day use, but it's not nearly enough real estate for development. My original comment probably came across wrong: my point is there aren't enough options, it seems.. or at least not enough options at a competitive price. It'd be nice to have the option of buying a thin laptop with decent resolution with perhaps less under the hood. Not all of us need a core

11" is not enough real estate for development. Doesn't matter what resolution it is. I have a pair of 24" 1924x1200 monitors that I use for development and I find the real estate far more usable than the 1920x1200 15.6" laptop I had a few years ago.

Obviously, 11-13" is not ideal. But I'm not looking for ideal in a laptop. I'm looking for something I can take to {somewhere nice to work} for a few hours and get by. No laptop will be able to replace my desktop setup; at least not without several large displays.:) But I'd rather have a small laptop that kind of works that I will actually use than a large laptop that still kind of works that I don't want to lug around.:)

Try the System76 laptops. The Gazelle is a very nice machine for the price, and I think all of their machines come with matte screens, with glossy being an option. The Bonobo is a 17" beast of a machine that is not particularly portable, but makes a great gaming or development machine. Both have 1440x1080 screens.

Can't tell if you're serious or not... I'll bite, though. I'd love to reward them for their work if their work fit my needs/criteria, but it does not. The price tag is simply too steep. As stated earlier, if there were more options as to what sort of processing power the thing had, perhaps the price point would be more flexible but alas, there are not.

The nearest equivalent Apple laptop is the 13" Macbook Air (disclaimer: I have one and it's very good). In the UK, the two machines are almost exactly same price and are effectively dimensionally identical too. But the Air has less RAM (4GB vs 8GB), a slower processor (i5 vs i7) and a lower resolution screen (1440x900 vs 1920x1080).

I bought my Air to run Linux; I like OS X, but I much prefer Ubuntu. If I were buying today, I'd take the XPS over the Air. Both machines seem good but, for my use case, the

You know, I ended up using a Macbook Pro because that is what the standard config was at work. Fine. I'm learned to adapt, even though Ubuntu is my preference. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it, but it isn't the perfect experience I was lead to believe it would be. I find I have to reboot more often than I did with my Ubuntu laptop. I miss my Home and End keys. Installing applications is confusing sometimes because you download the installer, you click on it, and it takes a few seconds to open. Excep

The current generation MBP has user replaceable RAM and storage. You're confusing the current generation MBP with Macbook Airs and Retina Macbook Pro. Apple even has a support document on the site "MacBook Pro: How to remove or install memory" that covers the current generation MBP introduced in June 2012 (http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1270).

The current generation MBP has user replaceable RAM and storage. You're confusing the current generation MBP with Macbook Airs and Retina Macbook Pro. Apple even has a support document on the site "MacBook Pro: How to remove or install memory" that covers the current generation MBP introduced in June 2012 (http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1270).

I just replaced the SSD of my 2 month old Retina MBP with a 480GB Aurora unit. To do that I had to disconnect the (very removable) battery so both are upgradable on the Retina MBP. You are kind of stuck with the 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3 RAM. The later model MBAs also have upgradable SSDs.

It was a bit of an anti-climax and a slight disappointment at first. Nothing happened. No pop-ups appeared. No first-time guide. No helpful hints. No gnashing hard-drive activity. Just silence and waiting for my command.

Since then I've come to appreciate this as the #1 reason for using linux - when you actually want to get something done, it just seems to get out the way. It's a shame that more recent distro versions seem to be moving away from this though.

Since then I've come to appreciate this as the #1 reason for using linux - when you actually want to get something done, it just seems to get out the way. It's a shame that more recent distro versions seem to be moving away from this though.

Mint is pretty good in this regard; that's why I've switched from Ubuntu (and to avoid Unity of course).

As to the original article, though: yes, the product costs way more than I can spend on a laptop... I would have to buy a cheaper laptop and install Linux on my own. I don't at all mind doing this, but it does take time and patience.

The article's author saying that the average user will never be able to live with running Linux, though, strikes me as incorrect. Sure, installing and maintaining Linux may be out of reach, as would be doing all the tweaks necessary with sound cards, etc.

But running it? The average Jane or Joe that mostly needs a browser and little else? I set up a Mint box for my wife; she has no idea she's using a Linux system and doesn't care, as long as she can do email and Facebook and that sort of thing. I know of many such examples.

To be fair, a key thing is to have someone available to maintain the distribution. But there aren't virus issues and "safe browsing" is just about a given, which I think is A Very Big Deal for the typical user.

It depends. Linux tends to be nicer than Windows for USB, but still kind of falls flat on its face when it comes to GPU support, including HD h.264 video. Brute-force CPU decoding can only get you *so* far before the memory-bandwidth realities of trying to shovel around realtime 60fps 1920x1080 32-bit video data via PIO are going to bite you and cause problems.

Linux on laptops has gotten *enormously* better over the past few years, but it seems to consistently still have one set of problems with laptops tha

There are unclean hands on both sides, and as usual it's the end users who get caught in the crossfire.

If Linux's kernel developers made even the most half-assed token effort at not wantonly breaking the ABI with every new release, or allowed drivers to have an intermediate thunking layer that stabilized the ABI for at least a year or two at a time in exchange for a little more overhead, the driver problem would largely fix itself and become a non-issue. The problem is, Linux's stewards *want* kernel-depend

Unless something has changed since I looked into it last, Ubuntu doesn't have a EULA. It obviously has the GPL, which it may or may not prompt you to read and agree to. Other than that, some of the bundled proprietary software has EULAs, which it always prompts you to "agree to" when installing them- Flash, font packs, codecs, etc. If they're installed by default on this ultrabook, it's conceivable that you would be required to view the EULA on first run.

We have heard this line from Dell before. I trust them about as far as I could throw them. Most potential Linux customers don't need a preinstalled Linux laptop from these companies or even a special support division. ESPECIALLY if they plan to charge *MORE* than for their MS-Windows model. For one, many customers won't want Dell's choice of Linux nor the way it was installed.

What we need is commitment from the vendor that the hardware is not Linux hostile and they won't try to avoid their warranty obligation using Linux as an excuse. Even better, how about a nice support page describing the hardware in detail and the names of the Linux drivers and in what kernel for each component and some install tips. None of that is expensive or complex.

What we need is commitment from the vendor that the hardware is not Linux hostile and they won't try to avoid their warranty obligation using Linux as an excuse

Having worked for HP I knew that all their x86 (64 and 32 bit) machines could run Linux although they don't actually wave the flag about it and when I had an overheating problem there was no issue with getting the machine repaired under warranty even with Fedora on it. I actually have two HP laptops which I own, one which is about 5 years old which I use for testing and the other (HP dv7 just over two years old) which I use for personal and corporate use and both run Fedora 18 which "just works" even though

Sadly laptops are not so easy to accomplish. I have built several desktops which are childishly easy to do and have the added benefit of no microsoft tax. I've never purchased a new laptop and only once a new computer in the last couple of decades, that being the refurbished mac mini quad i7 server I got from the Apple store last year. It was a dreadful amount of money but the last few videos I edited on it made the purchase worthwhile. I've edited movies on Linux but it is a chore while on a Mac it is

I have no idea what parts of my post you think are "OCD", but there is no "building" your own ultrabook. They are mostly unconfigurable. However I do build (which is really more like "put together") my own desktops, servers, and thin clients, and have for many years. Except for servers, it is always more expensive, but they are also much higher quality and usually perform better too.... and, of course, they all run Linux.

I LOVE the keyboard on my Asus Zenbook. You'll see complaining online, but that's only because I had to open it up and tape the connector better after it shook loose (which was as simple as removing a few tiny Philips screws). But as far as actually typing, I can fly on this thing. No mushy keys here. This thing has a low key travel but a high feedback that makes it obvious when you have pressed the key.

It depends on the Zenbook. The earlier ones had bad keyboards and even worse trackpads. Apparently, ASUS was embarrassed enough by the reviews that they made a real effort on later models. I have a UX31A and it is just awesome. The backlit keyboard and trackpad are roughly equal in quality to a Macbook Air (which means they're better than everything else I've used) and the display is a wonderful 1080p IPS display with a matte finish that is the nicest 13" display I've ever seen. Throw in an i7 processo

The keyboard on the business class Dells used to be good. I have an old D630 that has an excellent keyboard. Trackpads are another matter. I find the apple laptops have pretty good ones but nothing in the "peecee" world seems to match up. I end up using a usb mouse instead.

You'd have a hard time fitting mechanical switches in the very small profile of a notebook. The added weight would also be very significant. My mechanical keyboard weights a good few pounds all by itself!

Maybe just the standard definition of a "mechanical keyboard"? That is to say using buckling springs, Cherry switches, etc. This is in opposition to most desktop keyboards, which use rubber domes. I believe most laptops use a scissor-switch setup, since it's thinner, but those are still in the dome family.

Dell makes some sweet laptops for Ubuntu and this new model seems to continue that tradition. I use the small form factor Latitude E6320 for work and play (with Ubuntu's 13.04 beta) and I'm happier than a pig in mud. If you're looking to move to a fully functional GNU/Linux distribution on a laptop or desktop, I must say that Canonical seems to have their act together. Just remember to run "sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping". Nasty stuff.

Last week I was looking for a Linux ultrabook after my 8 year old one died (wasn't called that back then but I digress). I spent 2 evenings shopping on various sites and I was sure there were some at Dell because we buy Linux laptops from them at work. After failing to find them on their site, I called them up. The answer: no, we don't make Linux laptops. Well, fuck your lousy customer service, you just lost a sale.

Dear AC. Since you're unsure of what a keyboard is, I'm not sure how you managed to type the response.... Take a look at the key between the CTRL and ALT keys; there you will see, in all its splendour, a standard Microsoft Windows logo key.

and the laptop's bottom surface is coated in soft checkerboard patterned plastic

Probably one of the more interesting parts of the chassis as a whole is described as plastic, rather than factory made carbon fiber parts. This piece adds a lot of rigidity, strength and shock absorption (if/when dropped on the corner) without adding much weight, and yet he glosses right over it. Resin infused woven carbon fiber is a wonderful piece of modern material science and it's completely ignored. Dell should be praised for pushing materials like this in to consumer products that cost less than $2000.

Doesn't have to be razer thin or feather light, just around 2kg. I don't need 8 gigs or 8 cores either. I'd rather have the integrated GPU too. I don't crave an SSD. Don't need no fingerprint reader, 1080p webcam or logo-laden speakers. Keep the internals cheap I just want to pay for a decent screen.

"Linux is not yet "ready for the desktop [arstechnica.com]," and I'm doubtful it will ever be--at least not in the sense that an average person could use it full-time without any assistance. I've struggled before with using Linux as my full-time operating environment both at work and at home. I did it for years at work, but it was never quite as easy as I wanted it to be."

I disagree, it's no more complicated than installing Windows, how many people have to install an OS on their brand new computer?

I am no techie, not a geek, and I must object when technical writers claim that Linux is not 'ready for the desktop.'

I think it depends what you mean by "not yet ready for the desktop."

Not yet ready for the average user to install, maintain, tweak to get everything working, etc.? Surely not, though I wonder if Windows is all that much easier in that regard, except for the important distinction that Windows requires less effort to get everything working... usually the hardware works out of the box.

Not yet ready for the average user to use? As I've posted elsewhere, lots of average users are running a Linux box set up b